As technology has evolved the general trend in shopping market layout has been toward conveyor belt check stands with most stores requiring the customers to unload items from their shopping carts onto the belt which then moves the items to the checker who manually passes the items by a scanner for identification and pricing. One of the problems with such a system is that most customers would prefer not to be burdened by the task of unloading each item from their cart. Another related problem from the customer's perspective is that while they are occupied by the task of unloading the cart their attention is diverted from the register display showing prices as the checker scans items. A problem with the system from the store's perspective is often evident when an elderly or otherwise physically handicapped customer cannot keep up with the conveyor/checker and thus impedes throughput. Some shoppers place a hand carried basket of items on the conveyor which simply transfers the burden of item removal to the checker and the baskets have small capacity compared to the bin of this disclosure.
The desire to eliminate the current inefficiencies led to this invention, the conveyor vacated shopping bin. Envisioned is a nested stack of bins available to the customers as they access their shopping carts. The bin is placed crosswise on top of the cart at the front leaving room to the rear for placement of bulk items into the cart. The customer then places all the desired smaller items into the bin. Since an opaque bin may make it more difficult for the customer to identify their particular shopping cart by viewing items inside from a distance should they wander away to seek individual items, envisioned is either a transparent bin or a system of multi-colored bins.
At the check stand the configuration of the bottom of the bin allows the customer to simply twist and pull the bin to separate it from the cart, allowing the bin to be slid onto the check stand conveyor belt with the aid of a small roller at the front of the bin. Thus the customer does not have to lift the weight of the bin and its contents.
The conveyor then moves the bin to the check stand photo beam where a beam interrupter attached under the bin front door breaks the photo beam which causes the conveyor to stop. When the checker opens the front door of the bin the beam interrupter is moved out of the path of the photo beam which causes the conveyor to start and move the bin a short distance to a bin stop alongside the belt. But while the bin has been stopped the conveyor keeps moving. Inside the bin at the back are a back plate and a bottom plate which form an evacuating plunger that is not directly attached to the bin but rather is attached through slots to runners under the bin. Thus the moving conveyor causes the evacuating plunger to push the items toward the door opening at the checker. While the evacuating plunger is a very simple means of vacating bin contents it should be noted that other mechanisms could be used, such as a conveyor belt inside the bin powered by a roller in contact with the check stand conveyor.
An item sensor at the front of the bin activates another beam interrupter which causes the conveyor to stop each time a new item arrives. Thus the check stand still functions in the same manner as if the bin were not there. The evacuator also activates the beam interrupter when it reaches the front of the bin causing the conveyor to stop. It should be herein mentioned that the item detector need not be mechanical but could be simply the check stand beam diverted by mirrors inside the bin. When vacated the checker picks up the bin and tilts it, causing the evacuator to slide back and the door to close. The bin can then be nested into another stack. Also envisioned is a conveyor vacated bin that incorporates means for product identification such as a bar code scanner or a radio frequency tag reader. It should also be noted that the cart need not be a standard shopping cart but could be a specialized cart if so desired.
Several inventions have taught how to make check stand operation more efficient. These include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,036,722, 3,306,398, 3,924,709 (Swanson) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,611, All of which incorporate a conveyor in a cart. U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,426 (Verkler) shows a cart with a basket that is slidable to the checker. The Verkler patent does not use the standard check stand conveyor belt for evacuation and still requires individual items to be manually extricated from the bin. As a matter of fact the Verkler patent is intended for a check stand which does not even have a conveyor, a rarity in today's technology. The Verkler patent also requires a specialized cart. A distinct advantage of the conveyor vacated shopping bin besides not requiring a special conveyor is that contrary to the Verkler patent it also does not require a specialized cart. The Swanson patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,709) requires a complicated and expensive bin with a built in conveyor and does not use the standard check stand conveyor belt but rather requires a special roller drive system to be added to the check stand, a requirement that the current chains of super markets would highly object to. The Swanson invention also is intended for the currently rare check stand that doesn't even have a conveyor. All cited approaches require an expensive cart and extensive modifications to the check stand. The customer is required to position the cart correctly for unloading. Either all bulk items must go through the same unloading and scanning procedure, cumbersome at best, or a separate special procedure would be needed. Only one customer can be served at a time whereas the conveyor vacated bin system allows one bin or indeed even individual items to be placed on the conveyor as the former bin is being evacuated. The slidable basket version is further restricted by a trade off between capacity and distance the checker must reach for items.